Chaos drowned them from almost the moment they had breached the surface world.
The stench of fire and smoke hit them like a brick wall, so thick it was near impossible to see let alone breathe. Soon the group was panting, desperate for air, as they fought to find their way through the bedroom and into the corridors.
Only praying that here they would be able to find somewhere to breathe.
At last they burst through the door and into the stone corridor, gasping for breath they struggled for a moment longer. Bent at the waist and heaving, drawing in as much air as he was capable of.
No one spoke for a moment, looking back into the room. For now the fire seemed contained in its walls.
Witch fire. Charlie recognised from the stories he had heard as a kid.
Recognisable from the way it burned, precise and controlled. Almost the perfect opposite than how normal fire worked, and a hundred times more deadly. It devoured everything in its path, little could stop it.
It appeared their enemy were playing a game of cat and mouse with them, it was there intent to burn down the castle with them inside it. But why don't they do it all at once? Charlie questioned in confusion.
"They must still be here," somewhere. Charlie said out loud, though deciding to omit the last part. "They're looking for something?" He said the next part with a little less certainty, he couldn't begin to think what for.
Shrugging his shoulders, a frown on his face and eyebrows furrowed with concentration. "We only need to find one man, and he's infinitely less dangerous then the rest of them." The growl which echoed from the Prince was enough to terrify any man.
Anthony.
Charlie would hesitate to call him much less dangerous.
"Don't forget the King," Charlie added as much as he hated to do it. "As well as Briar, Violet and Arthur," he said with a firm voice. Despite the fact he was shaking pretty much from head to toe, not just because of the fact he had been submerged in water for so long.
Now with flames licking at his fur as they began to slowly breach the corridors as well, he was beginning to warm up yet the shaking didn't stop. The fear, the exhaustion and the pain was beginning to take its hold.
And Charlie was beginning to struggle to shake it off.
"We're all dead if we don't find Anthony," Robert replied with the same growl to his voice. "And their aren't enough of us to split up." Despite his attempts to sound calm and held together, Charlie knew his older brother enough to know that he hated every word which came from his mouth.
He could guess that the Prince was fighting every animalistic urge to stop himself setting off running and not stopping until he found his wife and daughter.
In spite of it all, Charlie admired his brother for being able to hold it together enough to know what the reasonable, logical thing to do was and do it. Following his head rather than his heart, something Charlie had never been good at.
Charlie knew that he would never have been able to make the same choice as the prince.
Part of him wondered if Robert was doing it because he was terrified what the truth might actually be. That the last remnants of the people he loved might be at the bottom of that cave, drowned.
All because of his and Charlie's choices.
Moving slightly, Charlie placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and left it there for a split second before removing it. It was a minute gesture, one most hadn't noticed, but he knew his brother would have felt it.
Robert brushed his shoulder against Charlie, a silent thank you.
In that moment, the two brothers were the only thing holding each other together.
"Lets go," Charlie said firmly when Robert seemed unable to find the words. Or couldn't bring himself to say them, Charlie thought to himself. Regarding his brother with a backwards glance, to which the man only nodded in response.
With the approval of the Prince, they had straightened and set off. A few more hesitant then others, they were all drained to the point of collapse. Charlie could hardly blame them for struggling to find the moral to keep moving.
But they had little other choice.
Following their noses, the small group of wolves snaked in and out of corridors. Searching every crevice for any sign of life. Charlie passed a few of the bodies he had made from his first searc of the castle, and didn't look back at it.
Right now wasn't a time for regrets but action.
Even if every action sent a shockwave of pain down his spine.
The further they searched and the deeper through the castle the group went. The more eerie the atmosphere began to become, Charlie was beginning to tire and the redness was beginning to urge at the edge of his vision but for now he held it together.
Though if he didn't find something to tear his fangs into soon, he feared he may turn on his own people. Again.
Yet no matter how hard they tried, there seemed to be no presence of anybody else in this place. Silence filled every hall, and even the mice which usually populated every crevice of the palace were nowhere to be seen.
It seemed as though it had been stripped of every bit of life.
But why haven't they burned the place to the ground if they're all gone?
Millions of thoughts were running through his head to the point where he couldn't think remotely straight as they bounded on. Picking up the pace in their desperation, and the panic was fuelling them on despite of their exhaustion.
After a while, the group began making second and third rounds of the castle. Each time picking up the pace further and further until they were at a full run, desperate to find any signs of something still remaining.
Finding the witch and stopping his magic could be the only way they could save their loved ones, and now they were getting more and more desperate. Soon the anger was palpable among them, and Charlie wasn't sure how much longer any of them could have kept it up at this pace.
During the fourth lap around the top of the castle, was the first time Charlie finally spotted it.
And by the time he did it was far too late.
For a split second, Charlie had paused to catch his breath. Resting his head against the wall as he breathed as deeply as his oxygen deprived lungs would allow him to. Tail between his legs he barely noticed the rest of the group getting further ahead.
Just to his left stood a wall length mirror, he spotted his reflection and couldn't help but recoil.
He looked just like he felt, as though he'd been through hell.
It was then that the wall disappeared, and he tumbled through the gap with an inelegant thud.
Leaping to his feet with a snarl, the wall quickly returned to where it had been.
From this side, the truth became apparent. An illusion, yet again.
One of the first things Charlie noted wasn't the fact that he was vastly outnumbered by people staring at him as though he was a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe. Nor was it the laughter which burst from among many of them.
It was the strange, indescribable smell which came from one of the corners of the room.
It was here that his attention first went, breathing deeply and the rest seemed quite happy to allow him to do so. Their laughter following him as he crept towards the corner. The less then logical state of mind making this a greater priority apparently.
But no matter how hard he tried, how desperately he searched. He couldn't find any indication as to what the smell emanating from the area was. And he doubted that the laughing enemies were going to let him know.
Giving up, and praying beyond hope that it would not be something of importance Charlie lifted himself to his paws and returned to the centre of attention. Twitching his ears from side to side with caution, he sat down on edge.
Forcing himself to keep his chin high, even if they were doing everything in their power to embarrass and belittle him. He would do his best to make it seem as though they weren't going to get to him.
Several dozen men and women were settled within it, they regarded him amusedly though the hatred was still apparent in their gazes. This was the enemy, and they were considerably calmer then they should have been considering the fire burning metres away from them.
"Kind of you to finally join us," it was Anthony who spoke first laughter lighting his eyes.
"Where is my brother?" was the only response Charlie could think of. Whilst their may have been more pressing matters at the moment, Charlie had his priorities a little askew, and the need to ensure the safety of his brother took top billing.
"I believe he went on ahead with the rest of the group," the sarcasm dripped from his tongue like usual. Gone was the man who had begged the King for his life, and the man who had killed four of his father's men with a click of his fingers seemed magnified.
Charlie could feel his hatred growing so strong in his chest that he was sure it would make him explode into a thousand pieces. Hopefully bringing them all down with me, Charlie thought with a snarl. "You know who I meant."
If sarcasm dripped from Anthony's tongue, the unadulterated anger was pulsing from Charlie.
Now it was apparent he would gain no answers from the witch at least not regarding his brother. Instead Charlie turned his attention to the next question from a list which currently felt a mile long.
There was only maybe three dozen men and women in this room, enemies anyway. Where were the hundreds Charlie had seen before, guarding the mountain cliffs and paths. He narrowed his eyes, "Where is everyone else?" He spoke calmly.
Anthony snorted, "They have better things to do then to wait around for you to die, they are elsewhere."
Lies. Charlie could taste the false statement even from metres away, he pinned his ears.
It was then that he smelled something else, something much stronger.
Disease. Charlie noticed, and he pinned his ears. Now he was in a much closer proximity to him he realised that which before hadn't been noticed. Mostly because he had been surrounded by bodies in their previous interactions.
They stank of death.
This news took Charlie aback, and it sickened him to his stomach the very smell, he paused. Ears flat to his head as he looked from one to the other through narrowed eyes. In spite of their attempts to appear calm and contained, he could see the rings beneath their eyes, the way their skin clung to their bodies.
"What went wrong?" He asked with a voice much calmer then he believed he could make.
Apparently no one had expected this to be his next question. No one moved, but they regarded him with what he had believed to be impossible, more hatred. And he believed he would gain no answer to this either.
As one they seemed to recoil away from him, his calmness seemed to repel them. Like all they had ever known was anger and hatred and fury. Charlie wondered if they could even remember a life before they had been turned into... this.
Before then Charlie hadn't even thought about the fact that these people had known a life before they had become what he was. That I had a life before I became this, the realisation hit Charlie a little harder then he had expected.
It was then that he heard a voice which was all to familiar.
"The surgery Charlie, not that they'd admit it." A voice appeared to come from nowhere, "It went wrong and they're infected. Most of them are dead, that's why so many were guarding the cliff."
The voice made him jump, tail fleeing between his legs with a growl he looked around. Ears pinned flat to his head, he couldn't be sure, even if he was hoping desperately.
Growls came from multiple wolves, defensive sounds as though they hated admitting weakness.
With a sigh, Anthony gestured and the illusion fell, revealing who had spoken.
A very sickly Arthur was tied to a chair, unable to move or defend himself. He was pale as snow and every breath seemed to cause him pain. From the last time Charlie had seen him, hours before, his condition seemed to have deteriorated hugely.
Charlie snarled in fury at the sight of his younger brother, and how much pain the vulnerable man seemed to be in.
Despite the glares he was receiving from the others, the young man continued firmly. "That's why they wanted you to join them, why they offered you to swap sides even this late." Arthur spoke with a hoarse voice.
"They thought you might be able to save them."
In that moment, Charlie felt his heart drop to his toes. But he had little pity for them. There was no pain flickering through him for a people whose past weeks had been spent doing their best efforts to kill him. As far as he was concerned, they deserved it all.
"You were going to burn yourselves to death, and bring us down with them." Charlie snarled.
Their lack of answer told him the answer to that was probably yes.
"We would have been dead by the time fire reached us," one said without a care in the world. As though she was commenting on the weather and not her own death. "We just wanted to make sure you went first, but you couldn't even do that."
Arthur growled at this, and Charlie had the feeling he would have given both his arms to kill at least one of them in that moment. "They've been dropping like flies all day, these are the only ones left."
"Cowards," the young wolf snarled in fury. His tail lashing from side to side, he could barely control his own anger at this point. He was struggling to hold any of it together, and he knew he had to.
He would be alone in this fight, at least until he managed to kill Anthony.
And even the worlds biggest optimist couldn't have seen a way for that to happen.
"You're father tried to kill every one of my people simply because we exist," Anthony's tone was lethal. It was almost shaking with the fury which bubbled inside him. "He made you to try and help him do it!" He retorted.
"We simply wanted to return the favour." The witch finished as though he hadn't a care in the world. This was a man with a vendetta, he didn't care about what he did or who he hurt to ensure he got it.
Charlie looked back at the wolves in silence for a moment. "I couldn't help you, even if I wanted to," he said slowly. This time he had a hint of sadness to his heart, but not something which could overtake his anger.
The wolves regarded with boredom in their eyes, their own sadness was apparent. "We guessed as much," the woman replied. It seemed that they had accepted their fate, but intended to bring as many down with them as possible.
Yet Charlie wasn't finished, despite the fact he knew time may well running out. He was desperate for answers and wasn't thinking straight in that moment. His mind seemed to have forgotten about the people who could be drowning at that moment in time.
With a sigh, Charlie struggled for a second as to how to word any of this. "You have to understand none of us can exist for much longer," he spoke in a pained tone. "That we cant exist in this world."
"We're just too dangerous."
The words fell to a silent group, no one said anything for a few moments. The pain in Charlie's voice seemed to bring a gravity to the room. No one new how to respond, even Charlie hadn't expected the words to come from his throat.
It was the first time he had truly admitted it to himself. That he couldn't let himself live much longer. He had already killed too many people to even believe that living in this world could ever happen.
After a few moments of silence, he was at last given a response.
"We're not going to be around much longer," the woman said with a pained sigh.
Then she turned her gaze on in with a sharp anger in her eyes with a suddenness Charlie hadn't expected from someone who looked so very ill. "And neither will you."
With that, the entire room descended into chaos, and they all as one unit lunged for him.